BOSTON -- With his first words at Thursday's meeting on a renovated Lowell High School, MSBA Executive Director Jack McCarthy flatly dismissed the five designs the city submitted last week.

"None of these options are acceptable," he said. "They all have a new (swimming) pool in them and I think we've been clear that there's not going to be a new pool in the confines of this project."

The MSBA, or Massachusetts School Building Authority, has told Lowell repeatedly during the last six months that it will not help pay for any project that includes a new swimming pool. Local officials and their consultants hoped they could sway the MSBA with arguments about the importance of swimming programs in a city criss-crossed with canals and rivers.

Now, after three years that saw a divisive battle over the school's location and the city withdraw one plan already, Lowell will have to take a big step back and come up with substantially different designs for a downtown school.

The anticipated date of MSBA approval has moved back until June or August 2019, more than a year later than previously anticipated.

"We see it as not just dusting something off but bringing something new to the existing site," said Mary Ann Williams, a project executive with Skanska, the private firm managing the high school project for the city. "I think it has to be thoughtful and not driven by angst.

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The latest delay is sure to cause concern, though, among residents who still oppose the downtown location and those who are concerned about the rising cost of what will be the most expensive public school construction project in state history.

Despite the challenges, the MSBA officials made clear that Lowell is not the first district to struggle at this phase of a project and that its funding is not in jeopardy.

"Whether it's pushed (back) a year or accelerated, whatever the timetable is, the funding for this school is in place," MSBA CEO Jim MacDonald said at Thursday's meeting.

City councilors who attended the meeting characterized Thursday's meeting as mostly positive, but said they are frustrated the pool issue hadn't been resolved earlier.

"That's something I don't understand and that's a question I'm going to ask next week," Mayor Bill Samaras said, adding, "Perkins Eastman is going to really have a lot of explaining to do."

Lowell submitted its design for a school at Cawley Stadium last year, including a swimming pool. The MSBA informed the design team it would have to remove the pool from the plans. But City Manager Kevin Murphy said that until Thursday's meeting in Boston his administration and the city's consultants "never had a clear understanding about the MSBA's position on the pool; we were getting mixed signals from the MSBA."

Skanska and Perkins Eastman, the architect, will now examine whether it is feasible to renovate and expand the current school without moving the pool or whether the pool can be built at a separate site.

If the pool is taken out of the design, it will free up around 8,000 square feet of space.

The MSBA also raised questions about the size of the gym space in the city's designs. The plans call for a single gym facility similar to the current 28,000-square foot fieldhouse. That size exceeds MSBA regulations; the agency asked the consultants to consider splitting it in half. Unlike the pool, though, there appeared to be some wiggle room for the gym.

"We're not holding strictly to guidelines except in a few key areas," MSBA Director of Capital Planning Mary Pichetti said, acknowledging that the size of Lowell High School -- it will be built for 3,500 students -- renders some of the MSBA's rules impractical.

Before Skanska and Perkins Eastman get to work on new school designs, they will have to get a new contract.

The city has spent $1.4 million of the $2 million the City Council appropriated to pay the two companies for the feasibility studies. That may not be enough to cover the scope of work that still lies ahead Skanska has already submitted a new fee estimate to the city, but Murphy said he has not had a chance to review it.

It may be a difficult contract negotiation process.

"We asked them (about the pool) months ago," City Councilor John Leahy said. "They said 'we're going to argue the point and we think we can win. It's disappointing. They should have had a backup plan anyway."

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